Enjoy Christmas, because the grinches are coming

One reason for this, I now understand, is the high demand for grinches in other parts of the country at this time of year. With their ranks depleted and the workload spread over the entire continent, there's only so much damage grinches can do to any particular locale.

Even Arizona.

In January, however, the entire grinch herd will migrate back to the Southwest, as they do each year, stopping for months at the Arizona Capitol, where they serve in the House, the Senate, the Governor's Office and just about everywhere else.

Once in session, Arizona's legislative grinches will begin adding to their long list of needy and deserving state residents whom they are NOT going to help.

We already know many of those to whom the grinches will dole out political lumps of coal.

Sick people, for instance. Or those without health insurance.

Under the Affordable Care Act, each state had an opportunity to create its own Internet-based marketplace known as a health-insurance exchange. Gov. Jan Brewer, who doesn't like the law or the Obama administration, turned it down, in spite of the fact that consumer groups, health-insurance companies, hospitals and others had asked her to let Arizonans create our own exchange.

Diane Brown, executive director of Arizona Public Interest Research Group, told The Arizona Republic that Brewer's decision will prevent us from getting an exchange that "is best suited for Arizona's needs" and, instead, "defer to the federal government's one-size-fits-all approach."

There's also a chance that the Legislature will not expand the state's Medicaid program in 2013, putting more Arizona residents at risk.

In a government controlled by grinches, however, politics always wins over people.

Even when those people are children.

The Republic's Mary K. Reinhart reported this week that budget cuts by the Legislature could keep kids in foster care longer, adding to other cuts to programs designed to protect children. Meanwhile, another Arizona child is alleged to have been killed this week while in the care of abusive adults.

Otherwise, they would not have "swept" $50 million of the $97 million Arizona received as part of a multistate settlement against several big banks. The money was meant to provide counseling and refinancing relief to struggling homeowners.

I was told by Valerie Iverson, executive director of the Arizona Housing Alliance, that the swept funds could have provided counseling for 75,000 homeowners and legal aid for 10,000.

That's a lot of needy people to ignore, but over the course of a good (meaning bad) 2013, the grinches will do their darnedest to provide zero assistance to tens of thousands more.

At the same time, it would be inaccurate and unfair to say that the grinches are never charitable.

They are.

It's just that the only people to whom they are consistently and extravagantly generous are news writers.